


An Apple a Day Doesn’t Keep the Robin Away

by HibernatingHermit



Category: The Little White Horse - Elizabeth Goudge, The Secret of Moonacre (2008)
Genre: Apples, Banter, Conversations, F/M, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Height Differences, No Plot/Plotless, One Shot, Post-Canon, Teasing, apple picking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:40:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28891518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HibernatingHermit/pseuds/HibernatingHermit
Summary: “Whatever are you doing, Princess?” Robin asked.“If you must know,” she replied haughtily, “I’m picking apples.”
Relationships: Maria Merryweather/Robin de Noir
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	An Apple a Day Doesn’t Keep the Robin Away

Maria stood with her hands on her hips, frowning up into the branches of the tree. Two large, tempting red apples, shining in the warm sun, hung from thready limbs, so heavy in their fruitfulness that they bent their hangers. Somehow missed by those who had harvested the rest of their delectable companions, the apples seemed to tease her, swaying in the breeze just out of her reach, even as her stomach grumbled.

Cursing her small stature, she advanced toward the tree once again, stretching her arms up in a vain attempt to reach them. She jumped, and jumped again, and her fingers brushed the skin of one of those apples, but she could not gain hold of it. The branches of the tree were too small to climb, even for her, and so she backed away once again, an angry huff escaping her.

Her retreating steps were abruptly halted when she collided with something solid. As she whirled around, she quickly discovered that that something was, in fact, a _someone_. A very _annoying_ someone, who was wearing a stupid grin on his face, and who had a knack for appearing very suddenly, and startling whoever it was — usually Maria — he had snuck up on.

“Whatever are you doing, Princess?” Robin asked, grin widening at her obvious irritation.

She scowled, this time not at the tree. “If you _must_ know,” she replied haughtily, her chin tilting upwards, “I’m picking apples.”

He chuckled, playing with a twig he held between his long fingers. “Not very well, I’d say.”

“Let’s see _you_ do better, then,” she dared him, standing aside and motioning to the tree.

“All right.” Mischief danced in his dark eyes, and he gave Maria an impish wink that made her cheeks turn pink. He brushed past her, and she trailed after him, waiting with bated triumph to see him fail miserably at retrieving the sought after fruit.

“You’ll find they’re much too high,” said Maria. “I suppose that’s why they were left behind. It would make perfect sense, after all, as they can’t be—“

She dropped off as Robin reached up, and with hardly a venture onto his tiptoes, he grasped both apples firmly and tore them from their stems.

“—reached.”

Her face scrunched into something akin to a pout. It just wasn’t _fair_. He made it seem as if those apples weren’t very high up at all. She cursed her small frame yet again, because it was already annoying on its own, but add in the fact that Robin could go around picking high-hanging fruits, or retrieving volumes from ridiculously lofty bookshelves, and God forbid, look _good_ doing it, and it became all the more unbearable. Besides, she thought, it was terribly inconvenient, having to look _up_ at everyone all the time.

Turning round, he held both apples triumphantly in his palms, giving her an audacious smile that she very much would have liked to make disappear.

“There we are, Princess,” he said, nearly gloating. “ _That’s_ how you pick apples.”

“Easy for you to say, _giant_ ,” Maria snapped, snatching both of the apples away from him and making to stomp back toward home. Of course, it wasn’t like Robin actually _was_ anywhere near giant-like. He stood shorter than Uncle Benjamin and the Coeur, but, well, he was taller than _her_ , and that was all that mattered, anyway, because it was annoying.

She heard him following along behind her, even before he started talking.

“Don’t you think I deserve one of those, Princess?” His long stride soon caught up to her, and he passed her by, cutting in front of her and walking backwards so as to face her with that confounded smirk on his face. “After all, I _did_ do all the work to get them.”

Maria scoffed and kept walking. “You hardly did anything.”

“Well, at least I wasn’t _jumping_ at them like an idiot.”

Her determined march came to swift halt as she glared menacingly up into his face. “I — you — _ugh_!” Words failed her, and the stammering made her cheeks flare a deep red. He looked smug at her verbal flailing, so she threw one of the apples at him. Hard.

Robin stumbled backward in surprise, the apple narrowly missing his face, but he tripped over his own feet and thumped onto his backside in the grass, his hat falling off his head.

“Ow....” He grumbled, quickly regaining his feet, sending Maria a scowl as he thrust his hat back onto his disheveled curls.

“Serves you right,” said Maria, holding back a laugh at her small victory.

He grumbled to himself as he marched over to the fallen apple and snatched it from the ground. Maria resumed her march back to Moonacre Manor, though it was decidedly less brisk and angry this time.

Robin fell into stride beside her, and they soon found themselves wrapped in companionable silence, the only sound being the singing of birds, their footsteps on the green grass, and the satisfying crunch of biting into delicious, juicy apples.


End file.
